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July 1995, Week 2

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Subject:
From:
Mike Frank <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 11 Jul 1995 15:17:19 -0400
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i'm baffled
 
murray pomerance joins gene stavis in "pointing out a real *linguistic*
 deficiency of the
> "lingua franca" of semiotics . . . its incapacity to deal with
> the non-verbal aspect of filmic constructions". . . and then goes on to
ask, in his own bafflement, "how on earth is anybody SERIOUSLY talking about
films as texts?"
 
 . . . but in fact the whole of mp's letter is a discussion of films as texts
. . . to illustrate the alleged non-textuality of film he points out that
while a writer can "say that something is behind something else" the writer
cannot do what the image maker can, viz. "construct a filmic image with
retreating planes of focus" . . . to which one can only say, but of course.
 
        . . . it is, in fact, an essential part of the characteristic
difference between verbal and image texts that the former cannot by its nature
or its conventions present two things simultaneously, while it the genius of
the second to do that . . . pomerance and stavis are absolutely right about
this . . . but this is merely a description of the diffrence between them AS
TEXTS;  that is one kind of text works one way, and the other kind of text
works the other way . . . but to the extent that they both work, and one of
the jobs they both do is communicate meaning, they surely can both be called
texts . . .
 
        . . . and even if one thinks that no verbal text can ever do more
than approximate very crudely indeed a visual text, what does the champion of
the cinematic lose by allowing that films are texts too? . . . what exactly
are they afraid of, what does this eay of conceiving of films threaten? . . .
 the near violence of the claim strikes me as powerfully as the substance . . .
 
perhaps there's more going on here than meets the e-mail eye
 
mike frank
 
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